Limewire, the early 2000s P2P file-sharing program that was used primarily to share pirated music, and later revived as an NFT marketplace, has made news by purchasing the rights to Fyre Festival. The now NFT marketplace reportedly paid close to US$250,000 (~RM1.05 million) for it, with plans to possibly transform it into a new music streaming service.
“Fyre became a symbol of hype gone wrong, but it also made history,” LimeWire’s chief executive officer, Julian Zehetmayr, said in a statement. “We’re not bringing the festival back. We’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.”
Given its resurrected nature, LimeWire may try to use Fyre Festival as a way to further sell some form of NFT through its marketplace because…well, it’s an NFT marketplace. To that end, it is supposedly planning a “reimagined vision for Fyre”, but again, how it plans on doing so is still anyone’s guess.
If you’re not up to speed as to why the Fyre Festival brand is filled with so controversy, here’s the quick skinny: back in 2017, the brand, which was owned by convicted fraudster, Billy McFarland, and rapper Ja Rule, set out with the ambitious plan to create a luxurious music festival in the Bahamas.
The promotional material includes many famous supermodels, including Emily Ratajkowski, Kendall Jenner, and Bella Hadid, and tickets cost upwards of US$100,000 (~RM419,600). But, instead of pure sandy beaches, villas, and five-star catering, guests were greeted by dirty fields, emergency dome tents, and cheese and tomato sandwiches.
McFarland was eventually convicted of wire fraud and was sentenced to six years in prison in 2018, but served less than four years. Getting back to the sale of Fyre Festival to Limewire, he was clearly unhappy, expressing his disappointment about his low purchase price “This sucks. It’s so low.”
